Lunch Box: Pizzadilla

One of the benefits of working from home is a hot lunch. Every weekday afternoon I’ll post what I had for lunch that day. Sometimes it will look delicious and sometimes it won’t (sometimes it won’t even be hot). But hopefully it will be informative, and give you some ideas about how to make your own lunches more creative.

You can prepare the ingredients for this dish ahead of time, in bulk, and have pizzadillas a few times in a row. This can also serve as a very easy week-night meal.

Ingredients:

Whatever you like on your pizza. A few things that work well are mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, peppers and onions.

Step 2. Heat a large saucepan (I use my cast-iron skillet for this) over medium heat.

Step 3. Lay down one tortilla, then a thin layer of cheese. Top with your preferred toppings.

Step 4. Cover with another thin layer of cheese. Top with the second tortilla and press down. (You want to have two layers of cheese so the pizzadilla sticks together well.)

Step 5. Heat until bottom layer of cheese has melted. Press around the edge of the tortilla before flipping, to really stick the two tortillas together. This will keep goodies from slipping out of your pizzadilla when you turn it. Flip the pizzadilla and cook for another minute or two, until all the cheese has melted. Continue to press down on the pizzadilla with a spatula.

Step 6. While the pizzadilla is cooking, heat some red sauce for dipping. Serve up the cooked pizzadilla onto a cutting board and slice (yes, a pizza cutter works well for this). Then eat!

Note: It’s not necessary to cook the pizzadilla with oil or butter in the pan. Don’t worry about the tortilla sticking or anything. You’ll just get a few toast marks (as in the main photo). Also, while other recipes call for applying a layer of sauce on each tortilla, I don’t recommend this. It makes the pizzadilla a lot wetter. It’s better to simply dip into the sauce.

This looks delicious. Also, this post made me think of another helpful post you could do: proper care of a cast-iron skillet. I’ve always been intimidated to buy one because of all the “seasoning” (or whatever it’s called) that you apparently have to undertake. Maybe the manly housekeeper could share his own experiences in this regard?

http://themanlyhousekeeper.com Mark Evitt

Great suggestion! Going on the list, and something I’ll definitely tackle. I agree cast-iron skillet care is intimidating. Fortunately there are more and more pans you can buy now that come pre-seasoned, so that removes some of the trouble.